The Orange Box - Advanced Mode FAQ

Portal Advanced Mode FAQ/guide
Developed by Valve
Published by Valve
Released in 2007
What is Portal
Portal is a game about an unnamed character who is trapped in an
ApertureScience Industries laboratory. While the AS entity co-exists with
Black Mesa in the Half-life doctrine, the game itself is tangential to
the "primary" game of Half-life 2. That's PR-speak. In game terms, this game
has absolutely nothing to do with Half-life 2, except both use the much-
maligned Source engine as their core.
Inventory
The Portal woman has nothing in her inventory except the Portal Gun, which is
more valuable than all the wealth and internal organs of your crummy slum of a
hometown (where ever the hell that is); this is a blanket prejudice --
including the author's home town of San Fran-shit-sco. With the Portal Gun, it
is possible for the player to create two portals (red and blue) and move
yourself, objects, and line of sight between them. Since the game is basically
about escape, the "weapon" is at home with this game.
Game World / Parameters
The basic premise of Portal is escape. Since the whole exercise is like a rat
in a maze, your goal is to reach the exit by any means necessary. Once you go
through the basic mode, the extra modes (advanced, least steps, least portals)
will appear for missions 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. These are the stages this file
will focus on since they are the only ones with advanced mode.
Gravitational physics is the key to your ability to move in the world of
Portal. Since the Portal woman jumps as high as an inebriated human trunk with
an inner ear disorder, you will need the portal gun to create points where you
can fall and achieve great speeds to cover great distances. The game uses the
term "fling" which is only a half-truth; the flinging portion only occurs if
you successfully have a spot to fall to, hence a more preferable term of fall-
fling is used throughout this file.
Fall damage is not registered in Portal, but the Portal woman is susceptible
to impact damage (from turret gunfire and rockets) and drowning. All water in
this game is considered lethal, as are the incinerators. For everthing else,
there's Mastercard.
I'm going to assume some things when you read this file -- you finished Portal
on normal mode without using another help file; this is a good thing, since
the basic game prepares you mentally for advanced mode. If not, then you can
check out the FAQs and guides on IGN here:
Half-life Orange Box/Portal FAQs and Guides
Unless you're retarded, you should be able to deduce exactly how to get from
one place to another using Portals. For the record, the game's advance mode
does not get truly hard until you hit the missions 7, 8, 9, or 10.
Mission 5 - Advanced
This mission differs primarily because there is only one weighted cube and the
main room is full of water.
For starters, step on the switch and kneel. Shoot a portal through the walkway
grating to either of the switch platforms in the main room and enter.
Activate the moving platform with the weighted cube using the energy sphere
and use a set of portals to drop down on the platform. Take the cube and make
a short hop to the exit ledge. Place the cube in a safe spot and create a set
of portals to drop the cube onto a switch; the walls next to the exit will
work to place the portal.
Once you manage to stand on the second switch to open the exit door, create a
set of portals to reach the place when the doors are closed. Step through like
a Lord of Tindalos and you're done.
Mission 6 - Advanced
You cannot do the developer shortcut (as mentioned in the developer
commentary). The tricky part is to place the initial portal next to the
structure with the weighted cube.
Once you have placed the portals, use the fall-fling to grab the cube. Weigh
down the switch to get to the energy sphere. Now you can pretty much activate
the lift and get the hell out of Dodge.
Mission 7 - Advanced
First hurdle -- align the portals vertically and start falling. When you are
falling from the top portal, shoot the top portal's color to the wall to fling
across the wall and forcefield. All an exercise of reflexes and lining things
up.
For the ball going through the three force fields, you simply create portal
sets quickly with the gun and lead the ball to the receiver. Don't forget that
the receptacle has a reddish glow on the ceiling, giving away its center when
you create a portal.
Second hurdle -- place a portal on the floor as near to the wall as possible.
Place a second portal (the one you will move shortly) to get to the high side
area. Move this second portal to the ceiling over the vertical space. From the
first portal, fall through and shoot the second portal into the floor to get
you back into the room with the low wall. Hopefully, you have enough momentum
to get the height and forward imeptus you need to clear the second hurdle.
To activate the moving platforms, play with the portals and the three banked
walls to guide the energy sphere to the receptacle. To get back across the
wall, you simply fall-fling back.
The moving platforms are easy if you keep track of which portal you are moving
to get to the end. Since there's no time limit, you use the one stationary
portal at the start of the moving platforms to get across.
For the final section, you need to move a fresh (not stale) energy sphere to
the space between the receptacle and wall; while that occurs, the first door
switch needs to be used.
Quickly move the portal aiming the sphere to the receiver to another spot --
the goal is the ceiling of the second room. Use the second portal to get to
the second door switch before the energy sphere expires. The sphere this time
lasts just long enough for this to work.
Mission 8 - Advanced
This mission is one of expertly using the weight cubes to block the line of
sight of the GLaDOS turrets. The cages holding the turrets are capable of
holding each turret in place so they will never get knocked over.
Additionally, they are bulky and may necessitate Portal woman to go past each
cage from above.
Use portals to quickly bypass the first wave of turrets until you reach the
maintenance area with the cubes and junk. Portal the steel boxes (not the
wieghted cubes you can carry) to block the line of sight of the nearest turret.
Pick up a cube, crouch and move quickly behind the next turret. You need to
portal quickly into the room next to the switch, along with the cube. The room
full of cubes is used to build a wall of objects so you can get close enough
to step on the floor switch.
Place portals through the fencing to get by the last wave of turrets. Fast
fingers and a safe place for your home portal will help. Just note that the
last room to the exit, you need to move both portals, so get to it.
Mission 9 - Advanced
Instead of a cube, you get a sphere for this one. groobotube's infamous 18:05
PC Portal speed run has a neat trick you can replicate on the 360 version to
cut out a majority of this level. Get past the steps using the weighted sphere
and the energy spehere hallway.
The longest portion of the three receptacles will be reflecting the energy
ball using the weighted sphere into the receptacle. See you in about an hour.
The second and third receptacles are easier. The one receiver in the slanted
part of the room is simply guiding the ball in with various portals and using
simple geometry. The receiver with the two doors you need to trap the ball
between both doors and use the weighted sphere to open the second door
(without getting killed) before the energy ball dissipates. All this takes
more time to do than to write.
Once all that is done, you can move to the second part.
groobotube's jump and pick-up item trick from his PC speed run allows you to
use the weighted sphere to get past the three receivers easily. Be sure to set
up a portal back to the beginning to take the sphere with you when you get up
to the second half of the test chamber. For the window with the square hole,
fall-fling and shove the sphere through the opening first, then yourself
following. Dispose of the sphere in the incinerator as usual and you're done
with this test.
Mission 10 - Advanced
This final advanced test is the most brutal. Fir the first jump create a fall-
fling using the high wall and floor. However, hold the movement stick back to
get the momentum with one fall cycle. This is enough to get you to jump #2.
For the second jump, get to the edge of the precipice so you can look up and
see the small area of portal reactive surface in the distance. Create a portal
set, but use the line of sight ability to see if you will be arriving on safe
ground. Alternately, you can create a portal to safe ground on your first
jump, but that takes a little more practice than usual.
For the third jump, you need to be on top of some null-portal blocks (from
where you landed on the second jump), and fall back to the second platform to
get to the third platform.
From where you land on the third jump, you can easily see the fall-fling for
the fourth jump. Do that and when you land on the floor switch, save manually.
The cube is in the large room with turrets. Unlike the basic solution, you
need to utilize a portal outside of the room (don't get left inside or you get
stuck). Create a stationary "return" portal on the floor below the area with
the switch. You need to fall-fling across the large room with the turrets to
get to the relative safety of the cube (protects against turrets). Do that by
creating a moving portal on the slanted wall after pressing the wall switch.
Once you commit to the fall-fling, you need to move the portal from the
slanted wall to a small piece of floor below the cubby where the cube is (do
this during the fall-fling). If you fail, you are pretty much going to die
from the turrets' gun fire. Hide behind the cube, pick it up and move off the
cubby to the floor below. Take the portal created back to the vertical shaft.
If you moved the return portal, or failed to move the portal from the slanted
wall to the right place, you might as well die.
After you take the cube back to the vertical shaft (remember, you can grab
items through portals, if you cannot fit the cube through), consider saving.
Take the cube back to the floor switch (look up from the return portal and
locate the small patch of portal taking surface). From there, it's merely a
matter of controlling your falls to get where you want.
The final part of the advanced challenge comprises of the platforms from the
basic solution. However, the platforms now collapse and destroy your portals
once you go through them; your solution is to be quick and get the right color
portal on the next higher platform before everything collapses into itself
like a collapsar. If you finish this relatively easy fall-fling exercise, you
will be the master of advanced mode.
File authored by sng-ign
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